Avery joined the Lakewood Lightning swim team this summer. She has always been a good swimmer, but when her friend from school joined the team, she was excited to give it a try. The team was in our neighborhood and since we have a pretty large neighborhood, we had a decent size team. Avery barely knew how to do freestyle when she started and left with a good understanding of all of the strokes and a great little dive thanks to her amazing coaches. Avery was in the 6 and under group. They only swim the backstroke and freestyle. If they are fast enough, they were allowed to be on the relay team. The good part to her age group was the amount of time you had to be an the meets. Usually they run all day from 8-2 or 3 sometimes as late as 4pm. But the 6 and under races are in the first part of the morning so they are usually out by noon. Meets were every Saturday for 6 weeks. The team went undefeated and sent many swimmers to the qualifying finals meets: Red, White and Blue and Ponderosa. Avery made Red, White and Blue in both strokes and her and the other 6 year old from her team that made RWB got to join a 7-8 year old relay when they were short two swimmers.
Lakewood Lightning
This is what 6am mornings look like before a swim meet. So glad the early mornings are over for now......brutal.
First practice meet at the home pool for start times.
Eating celebratory ring pops with her bestie
Getting ready for the first real race
Goofing off with friends
At the end of the season the team had a casual banquet and presented the swimmers with awards. Avery received a very special award from her coaches as the Most Improved Swimmer. Couldn't be more proud of her progress.
Avery getting her Most Improved medal by her coach Niki:
Avery's trophy and the back of her medal
All of this season's ribbons and medals. The ribbons on the third hook are called Sparklers. They give them out when a swimmer beats their own fastest time. It's like a personal best. Avery got several over the season.
Before the big finals meets, the team does a end of the season Divisionals meet with all the teams they competed against throughout the season. Lakewood came in first and Avery won 3rd in backstroke and 5th in freestyle. Her relay came in first, but got disqualified for a mistake from one of the girls on their team.
Her medals from Divisionals
One of the dads was the photog for the team. At the banquet he displayed all the photos that were taken during the season. These were some of my favs for Avery.
Unless you've been on a swim team, like any other sport, there are circumstances that are unique. Swim team meets for summer teams are usually held at neighborhood pools. Families bring those big folding canopies and ground blankets. They set up camp around the grounds of the pool or clubhouse and the kids hang out and play until their race is called. Avery's races were anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple hours apart. A big activities bag is usually required to get the little ones through the day. The indoor meet we had was the RWB that Avery qualified for during season. This was held at a high school pool. Since it wasn't outside, the families had to camp out in one of the designated holding rooms like the gym or cafeteria. I'm not sure if we were in the cafeteria or a large common space, but there was plenty of room for everyone and it was nice to not battle the heat and bugs.
Some of the girls from Lakewood with Coach Nikki between races.
Getting ready for the RWB freestyle
Don't have any idea what they were talking about, but I like to think it was a good pre-race pep talk :)
The RWB relay team that took 4th place out of 18 teams with 2 six year olds (only 7-8 team with 2 six and unders). So proud of our little ones.
Brief summer shower, after the final race.
Took some end of the season photos by our pool. Avery wore her team suit and her medals. Added some filters with her help for fun!
This is what "after a race" looks like:
Video is from Avery's 2nd place finish on the backstroke at the finals - Red, white and blue meet. She dropped almost 10 seconds from her previous time. When the video starts, she is the second girl from the left wearing the pink swim cap.When the video pans out, she is in the third lane from the left.
